Sonic Squad: Breaking Point
by Coleiosis
Summary: The Sonic Squad make it to Dr. Eggman's secret lab to expose him of his evil plan once and for all! But how can they do so when Shadow's movement is being controlled by Wario's neuro brain-tapper?


Sonic Squad: Breaking Point

By Cole Bezotte

**Note: Please forgive this story for being so short of a finale to the Sonic Squad series.**

Once the Sonic Squad stepped foot into the forest near Dr. Eggman's cave, Sonic looked behind him to see if everyone has caught up with him. But he only counted eleven people, now realizing that someone was missing. "Wait a minute!" he spoke up. "Where's Antoine? Did any of you see him today?"

"No," Sally answered. "We have not seen him ever since last week."

"Then there's definitely something fishy going on here. And I'm sure Eggman is behind it. But we also need to worry about this plan he has to roboticize the merged realms. And…" He thought for a moment, then continued: "If we can find Eggman, we can also find Antoine. I remember exactly where Eggman's lair is; we'll find him and bring him down once and for all!"

"Well said," Luigi said off in the distance. He still held the sleeping Shadow on his shoulder; now he was tired from carrying him around on this journey to Eggman's secret cave.

"Here's the deal," Sonic continued. "Luigi, Shadow, Chris, and Knuckles will go to the back of the secret cave while the rest of the gang and I head for the front. We'll fight off those villains while the four of you sneak to the back and find the main power source of Eggman's Roboticizer. See to it that Eggman's scheme is put to a stop. Let's go!"

And so, Luigi took Shadow with him around the cave to the back, along with Knuckles and Christopher. Shadow woke up suddenly to feel himself being set down onto the ground. "Do you think you'll be alright?" he heard Luigi say to him.

As Shadow got back up to his feet, he replied: "I'm sure of it. Thanks. You guys are the best."

Although, after Shadow said that, Chris became engulfed in a moment of deep thought. "Perhaps…" he thought to himself, "…this is not normally his mind. It suddenly changed, making him act like a lost boy. Someone must be messing with his brain." And Christopher Thorndyke was closer to the truth than he suspected. For Wario had already attached that neuro brain-tapper to the palm of Shadow's hand, while Shadow did not know about it.

Suddenly, Shadow felt his heart pound heavily, causing him to stumble to the ground. "What the heck?!" he exclaimed as he coughed. "Something is happening to me! But…what?!"

Knuckles, using his big spiky mittens, caught Shadow before he could hit his head on the ground. "Are you alright?" he spoke up. "Don't tell me you're getting a heart attack!"

"It may seem so!" Shadow replied. "Something's… controlling me…" He soon found himself blindly walking towards the lab of Dr. Eggman, now under the control of that evil obese man known as Wario.

"Shadow!" Luigi exclaimed. "Where are you going?!"

"I… don't know…" Shadow replied as he fell into another heavy sleep.

"He must have fallen asleep again. Come on! We've got to find out what's going on!" With that, the three heroes dashed off to find where Shadow was being drawn to. Later, they came across the rear entrance of the evil lab, observing Shadow enter the open door with his legs under Wario's control. "Keep going!" Luigi said as they went on.

After entering the lab, the trio looked around the room that Shadow was drawn to. The interior glowed an emerald green hue, as the good guys saw the giant machine right before their eyes. "This must be it!" Chris exclaimed, surprised. "This must be the master Roboticizer machine!"

"There's more than that!" Knuckles came in. "Look! The Chaos Emeralds are on top of the machine!"

"Now I remember: Eggman is harnessing the Chaos Emeralds' powers to give the giant Roboticizer more energy, in order to completely roboticize our merged realms! We've got to stop him!"

But Chris spoke too soon. Right at that second, Dr. Eggman finally showed himself, laughing evilly in triumph. "Finally!" he exclaimed, happy about his plan coming close to success. "Wario's invention worked! I've got to give him credit for his brain-tapper. But now, it's time that I finished this plot!" (And, it's time that I finished this story series; I'm running out of ideas!)

Shadow was later lifted onto the top of the Roboticizer, with the Chaos Emeralds' power connecting with his. The machine was now more powerful than ever. The trio, on the floor below, looked down beneath their feet and observed the rest of the forest turning into a complete machine. Luigi began to say something again: "What have you done with Shadow?!"

"It was quite simple, my friend," Eggman explained. "Wario put his new invention, the neuro brain-tapper, on the palm of Shadow's hand, putting him under Wario's complete control. The same thing happened with the traitor Geoffrey St. John, causing his death."

"Geoffrey!" Luigi continued. "I knew that there was something fishy about him. Wait a minute! I just remembered something: I saved something for later, just in case." He pulled a water bottle out of his pocket and ran towards the center of the giant Roboticizer. "I still have Geoffrey's blood from that fight we had earlier. This could still be useful."

"I don't think so!" Eggman protested. "I was at first going to fight against Sonic, but I've changed my mind. The end result is always the same; so this time, I'm going against you three!"

"You forgot one person: Shadow. He's still with us."

Knuckles leaned closer to Luigi, and asked: "What do you expect to do? What's the plan?"

"First off," Luigi explained, "we'll free Shadow from down there. Next, we'll get to the main controls of the machine and shut this whole thing down. Finally, our worlds will become different realms, and we will not longer be together as one realm."

"What?! That's what you want? You want to break up this fighting team?!"

"Since when have you become too soft? We deserve to be where we really belong. Trust me; I know what I'm doing."

But Eggman had his own strategy; he walked deeper into the room, with one of his robot's lance in hand. "You might as well give up now," he said. "I have power far stronger than yours! Once this pitiful realm becomes a machine, I shall be the tyrant ruler! All will pay homage to me!" With that, Eggman lunged forward with his lance, only to be met by Luigi's plumbing wrench.

"You're not fighting a beginner," Luigi said as he bashed Eggman's lance away.

While the two men fought, Knuckles climbed the giant Roboticizer, trying to head to the top and rescue Shadow from the power being harnessed. But he could not get any closer; he was suddenly forced off the machine by the power's great force. "Someone has to turn this thing off!" he said as he got back up to his feet.

"Precisely," Luigi replied as he jumped in front of Knuckles after knocking Eggman down to the ground. "That's why we're using this." He held the bottle of Geoffrey's blood and handed it to Knuckles. "Use this; put a drop of it onto the identification pad. It's the only way the controls could be activated."

And so, following Luigi's order, Knuckles rushed over to the identification pad and placed a tiny drop of Geoffrey's blood onto the panel. Reading the blood as Geoffrey's, the computer allowed the controls to be activated for whatever use. "Perfect!" Knuckles said as he grasped the main switches. "Now those emeralds will no longer be toyed with. And neither will Shadow."

Once the power of the Roboticizer was shut down, the Chaos Emeralds stopped generating it. But Shadow was still in his sleepy trance, still having the brain-tapper on his palm. So Knuckles climbed back up the Roboticizer and met Shadow in his trance. He used one of the spikes of his mittens to slice brain-tapper off of Shadow's hand, making him completely normal again.

Shadow woke up and looked down at the battle below. "No!" he spoke up. "My friends mustn't die!" With that, he jumped down to the floor and used his great power to battle against the evil mad scientist once known as Dr. Julian Ivo Robotnik. "This is your finish, doctor!" Shadow said as he battled on.

Meanwhile, Sonic and the other members of the team had already rescued Antoine. But they soon ran into trouble as the rest of the villains charged straight at them and attacked. Wario took out the gun that Geoffrey used to kill himself, and tried to fire at Sonic running all over the lab. "Dang it!" Wario exclaimed in anger and frustration. "He can dodge bullets!"

Sonic ran into a single room, thinking that it was the room where the Roboticizer was kept. But all he found was a dark and lonely room, with Bowser held as a captive. And so, Sonic left the dinosaur in there and started heading for the next door, which was where the Roboticizer was kept. "Perfect!" he said as he approached the machine. "Just what I need!"

Sonic jumped onto the machine and pulled something out from behind him. Eggman looked up to see what it was; he could not believe his eyes when he saw that Sonic had somehow found the Power Stones from Eggman's office. "And now…" Sonic continued. "Time to make everything normal again!"

"Wait a minute, Sonic!" Luigi interrupted. "I never had a chance to say good-bye. Once the realms go back to normal, we won't see each other again. We'll be back at our right places."

"It's a risk we have to take," Sonic replied. "We'll all miss each other." With a tear in his eye, he placed the Power Stones near the Chaos Emeralds and began a new session of Chaos Control. The powers of the emeralds combined with the Power Stones formed into a great eclipse, finally separating Earth and Mobius apart, making them two separate realms.

A giant sheet of white light engulfed the realms, as the two planets split into two, destroying the Roboticizer, and placing the Chaos Emeralds and Power Stones in their proper places.

When the light faded, Luigi woke up to find himself back at the Mario Bros. Plumbing Shop, this time looking more like the Earth he knew. "Wow," he said as he looked around. "This now looks a lot like home. I surely miss the old place, and now it's back."

Luigi stepped outside the shop and saw how the earth was back in shape; the city of Brooklyn was now recognizable to him. "I'm back," he muttered. All Mobians and Eggman were now back at Mobius, as were the people of Earth at their happy home. "Welcome back, Earth! Wait a minute! Where's Mario?"

He ran back inside and saw that Chris and Shadow were suddenly sitting on the couch in the living room. In Chris' hands, he held a piece of paper with familiar writing on it. "This is a note from Mario," Chris spoke up. "I don't know if he's coming back."

"You mean…" Luigi stuttered, "…he's at Mobius?"

"No. He's at the Mushroom Land. Read this."

Chris handed Luigi the note, and Luigi read the words that followed:

"Dear Luigi,

Sorry I am not here. I figured that if Bowser was to again threaten the Mushroom Land, someone had to be there to save Princess Peach from any danger that lurked. And so, I went back to that land, just like in the olden days. I want to relive the many adventures like it was before. You can come whenever you feel like it, Luigi. And yet, someone has to watch our plumbing shop when I am gone. You are now in charge of the plumbing business; I am leaving everything to your hands now. Keep it safe.

Sincerely yours,

Mario"

Luigi almost cried after reading Mario's note. "How can this be?" he said as he handed the note back to Chris.

"It's the way things have to be now," Chris replied. "I'm sorry."

"Will I ever see them again? I'll always remember the two best friends I've ever had: Mario and Sonic!"

**THE END!**


End file.
